


It Wasn't Funny Anyway (Kind Of)

by perfectlystill



Category: Wizards of Waverly Place
Genre: F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 02:42:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlystill/pseuds/perfectlystill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Alex, quite frankly, is bored. She’s <i>thisclose</i> to going downstairs to help Max run the substation. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Wasn't Funny Anyway (Kind Of)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [baroqueriot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/baroqueriot/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this, and that it's something approaching what you wanted. Happy Yuletide!

“Boring, boring, boring, boring, ew gross.” Alex pauses, watches a bone get popped back into place and a guy wince before a doctor is onscreen talking about something boring. She continues flipping through the channels. “Boring, boring, boooooooring. Ugh, boring.”

Alex, quite frankly, is bored. She’s _thisclose_ to going downstairs to help Max run the substation. Her parents are on some sort of gross anniversary trip to Mexico, probably drinking the water, and Harper’s studying abroad in Australia and has given Alex strict orders to let her settle in first before popping by—normally Alex would ignore that, zap over to Sydney and take some surfing lessons from a cute boy before “accidentally” running into Harper with a “You’re in Australia? I could have sworn you said Austria,” but she figures she owes Harper one after that mayonnaise incident last month. 

No one told her being a wizard would make life easier. Like, okay, she knew it would make life easier. She’s not stupid. She just didn’t know that when life got easier it could also get boringer. Is boringer a word? Whatever. She doesn’t care. And she can’t even mess things up because then she has to go through all the work of fixing it herself, and Alex is morally opposed to doing work, especially by herself.

She wishes Justin was here to bug. She’d love to make that vein in his forehead throb, his eyes widen, his cheeks flush. But he’s busy at WizTech and—

Oh. 

That gives her an idea. 

 

Justin raises an eyebrow, frown lines twitching at the corners of his mouth. “No.”

“Justin,” Alex whines, slipping into a seat across from where he’s sitting at his desk, paperwork spread in front of him. Shouldn’t the Wizard World be more advanced than paperwork? Whatever. She leans back in the chair and lifts her legs right over the sheet he was reading when she walked in, crossing her ankles. “I would be a very good teacher.”

He snorts.

Alex rolls her eyes. “I’m a good wizard. I beat you in the competition. Twice.”

“Doesn’t mean you understand the difference between reflecting and refracting light.”

“That’s not even magic.” Alex pauses, bites her lip. “Is it?”

Justin sighs. “It’s important when doing spells about—”

“—so no.” Alex flexes her toes in her shoes. “Come on. Let me teach something. I’m sure the students would like me better than whatever old bat you have now. What’s his name? Lester?”

“Leonard.” Justin pushes at her feet, but it only makes the paper underneath her boots crumple when her heels dig back against it. “You’re not getting anyone fired. He’s the best bat I know.”

“But?” Alex sucks her lips into her mouth to keep from smiling, watches her victory in the slump of Justin’s shoulder, the slow blink of his eyes, how he’s trying to smooth the paper out around her feet. 

“I guess you can teach the beginners class with me today,” he offers, grabbing her ankles and lifting her feet off the desk.

“Beginners? With you?” Alex frowns, lets her feet fall and smack loudly against the floor when Justin drops them. “I don’t work well with others.”

“I know.” Justin looks at her, a smirk on his face. “A professor’s job is kind of working well with others, Alex.”

“No.” She shakes her head, gives Justin her best you’re-an-idiot-how-did-you-get-this-far-in-life stare. “Professors boss people around and make their lives miserable.”

“Well, you’re great at that.”

“I know!” Alex crosses her arms. 

Justin rolls his eyes and looks like he’s about to say something else before changing his mind. “The beginners class starts at two. Meet me back here fifteen minutes before.” He shuffles the papers around his desk and Alex groans but pushes out of the chair. It’s the best offer she’s had all day. 

She’s almost to the door when he adds, “That’s 1:45.” Alex turns around and sticks her tongue out. 

He’s so annoying.

 

The beginners class is filled with children on the brink of puberty. They have greasy hair and greasy faces and voices that sometimes crack when they’re speaking. It’s amazing. Alex wishes Max was here. He’d mock these losers with her. 

“This is Miss Russo. She’s going to be observing today,” Justin explains. He keeps glancing at Alex like he doesn’t trust her. 

This is too easy.

A hand shoots up in the air and Justin rubs at his temples. “Is she your wife?” the boy asks. His hairline already looks like it’s receding. 

Some of the other students start snickering and Alex can’t help but bark out a laugh. “No. God. Kill me.”

“Alex,” Justin hisses, eyes going wide. He turns back to the class and clears his throat, face bright red. “No. She’s not my wife. I’m not,” he pulls at his collar, swallows. “I’m not married.”

“Got that right.”

Justin glares at her. “Anyway, today we’re going to discuss persuasion potions. Now, does anyone know what a persuasion potion is?”

“Isn’t it in the name?” Alex asks, crossing her arms and leaning against the podium until it rocks forward. 

“Margot,” Justin calls on a girl with curly red hair sitting in the front row. 

“It convinces people to do things.”

“Right.” Justin grabs a piece of chalk and starts scribbling on the board. Alex takes one look at it and realizes it’s pointless, boring information. She’s done with pointless, boring information. If she wanted that she would have sat on the coach watching Dr. Phil reruns until her eyes rolled all the way back in her head. 

She pulls her wand out of her boot and flicks it so a small, steaming flask filled with clear liquid sits on the desk. “This,” she points, “is a persuasion potion.” 

Half of the students’ mouths fall open, half of them inhale audibly, and all of their eyes go wide, glancing between Alex, the flash, and Justin. Justin turns around quickly and drops his chalk on the ground. Alex sees it roll under the desk. “Alex,” he says. “You can’t just—”

“But I did just.” She smirks.

“What’s that persuasion potion supposed to persuade people to do?” He asks, glancing at the class and straightening his shoulders as though he’s still in control of the situation. 

“I don’t know. Whatever I want.” She shrugs.

“That’s not the kind of persuasion potion we’re talking about today,” Justin says, mouth tight and lips barely moving. “That’s advanced magic.”

Alex rolls her eyes. “What were you going to do, throw those herbs over there into a pot and persuade someone to do the Macarena for thirty seconds?” 

“No,” Justin says, crossing his arms. “We were going to persuade someone to do the Cha-Cha Slide for fifteen seconds.”

“And that’s much better,” Alex drawls before turning to the class. “Is he always this boring?”

The kid who asked if she and Justin were married shouts, “Always,” and a few others nod along, looking confused. 

“Who wants to drink this?” She picks up the flask and waves it so the liquid starts sloshing up the sides.

“Don’t,” Justin grabs it from her and sets it back down on the desk. “No one is drinking that.”

“Well, fine. I’ll do it.” Alex reaches for it but Justin grabs her arm and twists it uncomfortably. “If you drink your own persuasion potion you’ll talk yourself into anything.”

Alex scoffs. “I do that anyway.”

“You’ll do whatever it is you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t.” 

And there’s something in Justin’s voice, low and sharp, almost a whisper, his eyes dilated and serious as he looks at her, face inches from her own, his hand loosening around her wrist, that makes Alex gulp and nod.

She lets Lester take her potion to the “top secret” locked potions safe—it’s behind a cabinet in the kitchen, Alex found it years ago during her first day at WizTech—without much of a fight at all. She knows what Justin meant, and she’s definitely not going to think about it. 

She doesn’t ever let herself think about it.

 

The headmaster’s suite is massive. And Justin’s clearly redecorated it since Crumbs left. It’s less Harry Potter and more Justin’s Room. Alex lies back on the couch, flipping through the channels they get at WizTech when Justin throws the door open, jaw clenched and hands balled into fists at his sides. “Alex.”

“Justin,” she smirks, flips off the television and sits up straighter. This is what she’s been waiting for. 

“Why did you charm the bricks so they’d turn into sewer rats instead of bunnies?”

“I don’t think you have any proof that that was me.”

“And you told all the faculty and staff that I wet the bed until I was fifteen?” His knuckles are turning white and his shoulders are so tense it looks like he doesn’t have a neck anymore. 

Alex shrugs. “Not me.”

“Did you come here just to make me look incompetent? I was finally starting to feel like people respected me. I was finally starting to feel I was doing a good job – like I could actually do this.” He exhales sharply and runs a hand through his hair. “And in one day you fuc--messed it all up.” 

“Justin,” Alex starts, voice barely a whisper. There’s something sinking in her chest, ice cold and sharp, pain like a pinched rib. “It was just a joke.”

“A joke? God. A joke is taking fluoride out of someone’s toothpaste.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”

“You never think,” he cuts her off. He’s not yelling anymore, and his entire body seems to slump with it. “What if you had taken that potion?”

“What?” Alex stands up, feels too small when she’s sitting, like Justin has the upper hand. His eyes are dark, like he knows exactly what she’s deliberately trying not to think, like he knows exactly how to knock her off balance. “I don’t know. I would have gone to Australia. Gone to,” she stutters, the lie revealed, “gone to see Mason.”

His eyes are narrowed and her entire body is too hot, goosebumps popping up on her arms. In the end he just relaxes, says, “Fine. At least you didn’t cause any physical damage.”

Alex almost tells him about the fire she accidentally started in the bathroom. “I can like, tell everyone I lied about the bed wetting thing.”

“It’s fine.” Justin rubs at the back of his neck. “Just. It’s fine.” 

He’s heading toward his bedroom, not even bothering to ask her to leave, his shoulders hitched forward, head down, and it’s stupid and she doesn’t have to do it, she could just go back to the substation and make a giant sandwich and take a bubble bath and wait until Justin visits and pretends none of this ever happened—until he lets her pretend none of this ever happened. 

He’s such a better person than she is. 

So. God.

Maybe she does have to do it. Maybe she does have to say, “I would have kissed you.”

He stops. 

“I would have said something stupid like ‘Remember the campfire? Remember that night everything was like,” she gestures with her hands even though he can’t see it, still facing his bedroom door, “and we thought we might not remember each other in the morning?’ I would have, I don’t fucking know, Justin.”

When he turns around his face is pinched and his breathing is erratic. There’s that vein in his forehead throbbing, there’s his face flushed. Alex worries her lip between her teeth and rolls her eyes. “Well?”

“Well,” he repeats. And he likes to act like he has a better grasp of the English language. Okay.

“Are you going to do something?” 

Justin rolls his eyes, but then he stepping forward and kissing her, not hesitant and unsure like Alex would expect, solid and firm and sure. It’s familiar and not, warm, his hands on her face not as calloused as the boys she’s dated and dumped. He’s bigger now, toned and adult. She pulls on his bottom lip, open his mouth up with her tongue, chasing the way it makes her feel, chasing the way he makes her feel. 

“Don’t say anything,” he breathes when they break away, his forehead against hers. 

“Wasn’t gonna.”

She kisses him again.

“But you have to admit the rat thing was pretty funny.”

Justin rolls his eyes. “Do not.”

“But it was.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

And, well, he doesn’t really. But like with everything else, he tries very hard.


End file.
